Sunday, April 9, 2017

Hasta la vista UK

Lovely day in Norwich today, the warmest of the year so far. Tomorrow I am packing my stuff and going to Portugal and Spain for 6 weeks, to do PhD fieldwork. I had to pick some gear up from James this morning, so I asked him to keep any cool moths he had. And he did. I know nothing about moth photography, and don't have the right gear for it, so many thanks to James for the crash course in moth photography. Our subject was this spectacular male Emperor Moth, a classic April moth. Recently more people use pheromones to attract them, and they show up in Norwich suburbia and in countryside Norfolk in reasonable numbers.

Emperor Moth (Saturnia pavonia)

While sipping fine espresso in James's garden, a curious Wood Mouse crept out into the open and ran around for food - probably to bring back to its nest. Huge awww factor on this little dude. I had James's 100mm lens on so not the best quality for this type of action - surely James has better results to show, later on.

So tomorrow I reach the climax of my PhD. 6 weeks of bird(count)ing in Alentejo and Extremadura. Looking forward to lots of birds, sun and good company. Will do my best to post regular updates, so stay tuned!